Tag: L-88 Corvette

On the Auction Block! 1968 Owens-Corning L88 Corvette

Published on by Scott

Dateline: 7-11.12

Subtitle: A Piece of Corvette racing history could be yours! How deep are YOUR pockets?

To check out the RM Auctions Monterey event, CLICK THE ABOVE IMAGE.

Sometimes you get a little “I wonder” thought. Yesterday I realized that the RM Auctions Monterey event would be coming up soon and wondered if there might be any interesting Corvettes going on the block. Last year there were five interesting Corvettes that were up for auction – four race cars and one one street Corvette. But the big splash was the auction of the John Greenwood Stars and Strips BF Goodrich  427 ZL-1-powered Corvette racer that went for $580,000. What’a show!

Usually, the cars are carefully pushed on the revolving stage, but for the Greenwood Corvette, the big ZL-1 was fired up off stage, sounding like an approaching thunder storm, and driven on stage. “Seven hundred horsepower, ladies and gentlemen!” said the auctioneer. And the crowd went wild! Yea, it was FUN.

So I checked in with the RM Auctions Monterey website to see if any Vettes were going on the block. But alas, I only found one (as of this date), but what’a beauty. Here’s your chance to buy one of the all-time great Corvette race cars, the ‘68 Owens-Corning Fiberglass L88 A/Production Corvette. This car won 22 consecutive races, qualified on the pole in most of its races, and scooped up the A/Production Championship two times!

The car is currently owned by John Thompson (no relation to race car driver, Jerry Thompson). In ‘07 Thompson sent the car to Corvette Repair for a restoration back to its Daytona ‘71 configuration. Kevin Mackay and his expert team completed the work in ‘08. In ‘09 the car won the NCRS American Heritage Award and was later one of the Chip’s Choice cars on display at the Corvettes at Carlisle Show. Continue reading “On the Auction Block! 1968 Owens-Corning L88 Corvette” →

C3 L-88 Corvettes Draw TOP DOLLAR at The Auctions!

Published on by Scott2 Comments

Dateline: 2.1.12

The once obscure L88s are now highly valued Corvettes!

Lurking under the hood is the 427 L88 beast.

It’s always an exciting thing when the heavy guns from the Corvette’s past go on the auction block. Auctions can be a quirky thing, be it a local farm auction or a high-level exotic cars auction. On one hand, the final sale price is a direct reflection of what the market place is willingness to pay. On the other hand, two people can get caught up in the adrenaline of the auction experience and drive up a final sale price. Either way, they’re always fun to watch to get a sense of the market value of Corvettes.

Keith Cornett at www.CorvetteBlogger.com does an excellent job of covering Corvette auction action. Well, it seems that there’s an interesting trend developing in the Corvette world over L88 Corvettes. L88s with the appropriate petegree are getting just just north of $600,000! That’s VERY impressive, considering that new, the cars cost in the neighborhood of $6,500 back in the day.

The L88 option was Mr. Duntov’s gift to his beloved Corvette racers. Just because GM didn’t want to go racing didn’t mean that Duntov couldn’t design and develop parts for independent racers to use. The L88 package was the ultimate racer kit for its day. On paper and in person, the L88 didn’t look all that spectacular. The only visual clue as to what lurked under the car’s body was the special cold-air-induction hood that was essentially a dome on top of the big-block hood’s dome. That was the ONLY visual clue. On paper the L88 was grossly underrated at just 430-horsepower. The real power number was never “officially” published, but it was estimated to be in the high 500horsepower range. Continue reading “C3 L-88 Corvettes Draw TOP DOLLAR at The Auctions!” →

Kevin Mackay’s Drivable, See-Thru, ’69 L-88 Corvette

Published on by Scott

Drivable Corvette Art

I consider Kevin Mackay to be a “Corvette artist.” Some of us use paint, markers, pen & ink, etc. You know, “artsey” stuff. Some artists work in other mediums – such as metal and fiberglass. Kevin Mackay’s “Corvette Repair” doesn’t just perform world-class restoration work on classic C1, C2, and C3 Corvette race cars and regular Corvettes, Kevin is also a mechanical, educational artist.

It’s always a pleasure to see Kevin at the shows. Last weekend we were vendors at the Strictly Corvettes and American Muscle Cars Show in Atlantic City. When you love Vettes, what’s there to not like about a Corvette show? We saw lots of smiles and had many interesting conversations. Kevin Mackay was on hand for the third year in a row with a delightful stable of customer cars, as well as several of his beauties. Continue reading “Kevin Mackay’s Drivable, See-Thru, ’69 L-88 Corvette” →